Monday, October 31, 2011

Get Your Motor Running...With Steam Punk!!!

I am a member of the All Things Tim (ATT) Yahoo Group, who pretty much devote themselves to following all of Timmy's "dark-side" ways! There are tons of swaps hosted at any given time, and one caught my eye and intrigued me after Gloria, the sites moderator, invited me to sign up. The theme was Steam Punk and I was to make tags depicting that, one of which Tim himself would receive.  I have been enamored with all the craziness and quirkiness of the Steam Punk movement since the first of this year when I read about it in Somerset Studio magazine, and in particular, the motorized gadgets and gears that make things run and fire up. I focused on this when creating my tag "If Only Time Would Stand Still", in three parts...Time flying by, a motorized hot air balloon, and the workings of a brain in deep thought. I am feeling like a child...(Heck, who am I kidding? I always feel like that!)...on Christmas morning, waiting anxiously for my swapped tags to arrive to see what everyone else has created!!! I will share those with you when they arrive.

By the way, the netting on the hot air balloon is from one of my brown fish net stockings! What can I say...I recycle and you should too!!! Also, the goggles were made by connecting two S shaped jump rings with a brad, filling them in with Glossy Accents, and applying a drop of Pitch Black Alcohol Ink on top. I really love how they turned out. As a matter of fact, this is probably my most favorite of all the tags I have ever created! I hope you like it too.


Supplies:
Paper Used- Graphic 45 in Steam Punk Debutante; TH Grunge Paper (top hat), Aluminum Coated Tags from U-Line; watercolor paper; corrugated paper
Vagabond Materials Used- TH Alterations Texture Fads in Time and Mini Gears; TH Die in Heart with Wings
Coloration Used- TH for Ranger Distress Ink in Gathered Twigs; TH for Ranger Distress Stain in Black Soot; Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Black Magic, Dark Rose, & Caramel Apple; TH for Ranger Adirondack Alcohol Ink in Pitch Black; Faber-Castell Water Color Pencils in Light Brown, Flesh, Blue and Red; Ranger Archival Ink Pad in Jet Black; Liquitex Clear Gesso
Stamps Used- TH for Stampers Anonymous Steam Punk & Numbers; Stampington and Company 's Clearly Impressed "Time" by Julie van Oosten (Face)
Embellishments Used- TH Ruler; TH Idea-ology Findings; Art Chix Studio Wings, Key,  & Clock; 7 Gypsies Gears; Maya Road Clock Face & Hands; Brown Netting or Fish Net Stocking; Brown Embroidering Thread; Creative Imaginations Swatch Book Ribbon Impress-Ons in Memories (Time Phrase Rub On); Prima Flower; 32 Degrees North German Gold Foil Wing; Acme Bead Propeller; snap button, eyelet, heart charm, watch parts from my stash; Graphic 45 Trim; TH Lace Ribbon

Sunday, October 30, 2011

More Cropping With The Girls!!!

I guess we just can't get enough cropping time together! This time everybody was busy doing different projects. Tamara was digitally scrapping a calendar, Lori was making Christmas tags, Kelly was tending to her already up to date scrapbooks...I'm so jealous of that...and Paula was building the coolest Halloween Configurations Tray ever. I cannot wait for that to be finished, but it's already a WOW!!! I was working on a Christmas tag that I will tell you about a little later. I totally cherish these times with the girls and all of our projects. If you haven't met up with your besties lately, call them up, invite them in, and have the best time ever creating something fabulous while catching up with great friends! Enjoy the journey everyone!!!

 
Nice teeth Paula!!!
 

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Configurations Tray Completed!!!

After a couple of get together Crops with the besties, Paula and I finally finished our Configurations Tray from the Tim Cruise. Phew! What a fun project!!! You can sit and look at them for 30 minutes and still see something you haven't noticed yet. Definitely my most favorite project of the cruise.
Paula's Tray


 
My Tray
 
 
 My Besties
Pam, Paula, Tamara, my DD and her friend
Recipe courtesy of Susan Lussier of NY
Tamara and her CE project
Paula and her Acorn Cookies

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Eerie Is The Raven

I am so excited! I won a $50 gift certificate to Simon Says Stamp for the random drawing at last weeks "Striped Card Challenge". WOW!!! I spent that real quick and will show you what I got when it comes! That totally made my day! Thank you Simon Says Stamp, and the blog reader who told me!!!  And...thank you, thank you to everyone who has commented and followed my blog! Words cannot express what that means to me.

This weeks challenge for Grungy Monday is the "Perfect Distress Technique" that you can see Tim video demonstrate. You create a background or image by stamping with distress ink, applying Perfect Pearls, and spritzing with water to deepen the color underneath. You get a vintage metallic finish. It's very beautiful looking and actually gives your project a faux texture, very cool. I decided to go for a Halloween theme just one more time this year, since I've been in the mood for it and orange, purple, and green have exploded all over my scrap space. I have done this technique so many times on various projects so I thought I'd give it a go. The Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge this week is to make something using "One Color". I thought this was indeed a challenge because you want things to pop off the page and scream, "Look at me!!!", and I wasn't sure that would happen. So I created this Halloween "Eerie Is The Raven" decoration. I used four accordion folds to make the window really stand our and not blend in with the wall since they were both bricked. I tried to photograph this but my picture is quite blurry...sorry.  As luck would have it, I was surfing the various blogs I subscribe to, I found two more challenges at Gingersnap Creations that happened to apply to my already finished card. One was a color challenge to make something "Black and Gray". The other is a Theme Challenge to make something with "Ravens"...an Edgar Allen Poe type theme. I couldn't believe it.  I don't know if GC allows one project in two challenges but I guess I'll find out soon. I am so loving all these challenges, and am thrilled to be able to take on some of them. If you haven't tried it, I hope you do soon. It really gets you inspired and driven to create something every day.


Supplies:
Paper Used-  Core-dinations Black Magic Color Core Cardstock; Graphic 45 Times Nouveau Collection Die Cut Frame; Making Memories Spook Alley; Cosmo Cricket Haunted:Gothic
Vagabond Materials Used- TH Alterations Die in Raven & Scaredy Cat and Small Easel; TH Alterations Texture Fade in Bricks
Stamps Used- Stampers Anonymous TH Collection in Mini Halloween 2 (bat) and Joyful Songs (cracked glass)
Coloration Used- TH for Ranger Distress Ink in Black Soot; Ranger Perfect Pearls in Heirloom Gold; Mini Mister with water
Embellishments Used- Teresa Collins T Drops in Black; American Crafts Thickers in Black Tiara; wired spider web given to me from Paula; brad

Friday, October 21, 2011

A Striped 10 Minute Card

Well...I decided to do another combination challenge (even though I didn't win the last two). The Grungy Monday challenge this week is to make a "card in under 10 minutes" using of course, some of Timmy's product (you can purchase it by clicking here). You cannot even imagine how difficult this was for me, the gaudy scrapper who takes days to complete something just so it's perfect. Challenge is the absolute correct word here!!! The other one from Simon Says Stamp and Show is to make something "striped". I have tons of striped paper, so no problem. I combined the two and created "Even a Queen Deserves the Night Off", in the movement of the moment...Halloween. It took me 2 times to get it done in under 10 minutes though. I only had seconds to spare. What a great idea when you are in a pinch and have to get a card out quickly. You absolutely have to have all of your supplies ready to go and your design all planned out to complete this in 10, but so worth it when your other option is stopping at the store, searching for the right card, and being late for the occasion. Moreover, you always score extra points when you give handmade.

Supplies:
Paper Used- Kraft Card & Envelope from Paper Studio; white card stock from my stash; Haunted: Them Bones from Cosmo Cricket; Haunted: Journaling Cards from Cosmo Crickett
TH Vagabond Materials Used- TH Alterations Queen of Hearts Texture Fade (I made 2, an extra to cut hearts from for the hat)
Stamps Used-  Stampers Anonymous TH Collection Mini Halloween2
Coloration Used- Ranger Archival Ink in Jet Black; TH Distress Ink for Ranger in Gathered Twigs, Ripe Persimmon, & Seedless Preserves; Sakura Glaze Pens in orange & yellow; Zig Dotta-Riffic in black; Faber-Castell Colored Pencil in lime green
Tools Used- Tonic Studios TH Scissors; TH Idea-ology Tini Attacher; Glue Glider Pro Perma Tac

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Halloween Recipe Holder

Can you believe it's already Autumn? Time for candy and food galore! Well actually...I have time for both all year round...hehehe! Keeping with the season though, I decided to enter my first challenge, well two really. Studio L3's Grungy Monday weekly challenge is to make a "Tim Holtz inspired Halloween" something, and Simon Says Stamp and Show weekly challenge is to create something with "wings". I decided to do a project that includes both of the criteria as well as combine my love for food and art. We will see how it goes. I hope some of you join in on the fun as well. And speaking of Tim, drop in and check out his last two Halloween projects...a Bewitching Tag and Halloween Texture Fades.

Halloween Recipe Holder:  This project is created for a magnetic frame. Therefore,  I attached magnets to the back of the project instead of altering the whole frame, so I can change out images every month to commemorate all holidays or seasons...sort of like calendar images. I can easily store the images in a folder until time to use them next year. The recipe cards just slip in behind the glued on elements. Cool...don't you think? You can always replace the recipes with a photo which is what the frame was originally intended for. I think this would make a fantastic wedding present. By the way, I make this trail mix every year for my neighbors and close friends to celebrate my favorite season. It's delish...Make some soon!!!

Supplies:
Frame- Bazzill Magnetic Frame
Paper Used- Core'dinations Color Core Cardstock in Black Magic (background), The Spider's Web by My Mind's Eye (tree images), and Tim Holtz Idea-ology Seasonal Paper Stash (Halloween words insert), TH Grunge Paper and Grunge Board (dies and extra decor)
TH Vagabond Materials Used- Dies: TH Alterations Artful Dwellings, Branch Tree, Heart Wings, Mini Acorn & Pumpkin Set, and Sizzix Spooky Fence; Texture Fades: TH Alterations Wood and the Paper Studio Journal Card with Scrolls
Stamps Used- TH Happy Halloween Ticket
Coloration Used- Inks: Ranger Archival Ink in Jet Black, TH Distress Ink in Black Soot, Gathered Twigs, Peeled Paint, Pumice Stone, and Ripe Persimmon, TH Adirondack Brights Alcohol Ink in Sunset Orange; Paint: Ranger Adirondack Acrylic Paint Dabber in Pitch Black and Gold, TH Distress Crackle Paint in Spiced Marmalade and Peeled Paint, Rock Candy; TH Distress Stain in Picket Fence and Vintage Photo, TH Distress Stickles in Rock Candy
Embellishments Used- TH Idea-ology Salvage Stickers (spooky word), Seasonal Mask (jack-o-lantern), Plaquettes (31), Brads, Stick Pin, Q-Tip (smoke)
*Note- The small jack-o-lantern, grave stones, sidewalk, and house parts were made from scraps of Grunge Paper.  The moon was created by sanding away Black Magic paper. Ranger Inkssentials Glossy Accents was added on top of the title letters and the bird in the tree on the left to add depth. 

Monday, October 10, 2011

Tim's Cruise Projects

I cannot even explain how exited and anticipation filled I was before every class with Tim. What where we going to create was all the topic with the besties. We were like kids at Christmas! Lori who was a newbie was nervous of course, but caught the "dark side" (that's what Timmy calls it) bug after Tim's welcome to class speech. The first project was just to start to getting our creative juices flowing and familiarize newbies with some technique. Cruise sponsors gave Tim all the free paper and rub-ons to create the drop in sheet that goes inside the cup. It will house my green tea from now on! SO NICE, SO NICE!!!
Project 1: The Cup of Creativity

On all the other past cruises we always made a journal so I had an idea we would make one again, but not this cool! I had never made a gate journal before and always wanted to, so this was perfect. Of course, it is not completed yet, so stay tuned for more pics later. There were tons of freebies for this one!!!
Project 2:  The Artful Journal
Front
Back

At our next class we only had an hour so we knew it would be a quick project. Paula guessed that it would be a watch, since we usually made some sort of jewelry on prior cruises. She was right...sort of. We made a necklace out of a watch case! We even received a big stack of Graphic 45 paper to help us along, as well as many Idea-ology pieces.
Project 3:  Elements of Time












 
 
For our last project we had 6 hours over two days to complete, so we knew it would be a biggie. This is the one Tim said to be finding things for that commemorated our trip. We all knew it would be a Configurations Box...but, it wasn't. It was a Configurations Tray with a photo album tied in...something Tim had never taught before...so this was a real treat! Talk about excitement...the whole room was a buzz, and it took awhile for the giddiness to die down.  You cannot even imagine all the free product Tim gave to us. He is "THE MAN" who is SO NICE, SO NICE!!! Please notice the phrase I made using the type cast grunge block letters. So appropriate, don't ya think??? Once again, I am not finished with it...hopefully soon.
Project 4:  Configuration Of Your Imagination

 
 
 
















Here is all the free LOOT we received from all Tim's sponsors! WOW!!!


 

 

This is what I won at Jim's Farewell Party...Coordinations Tim Holtz Kraft Core Cardstock in Nostalga and a large assortment of flowers by Prima (my fav). A big "Thank You" to all of the sponsors from the cruise!!! I just wanted to add one more thing. Tim did an  awesome cruise video recap of the trip that really brought tears to my eyes. The girls and I are in it soooo many times...I think I counted 7. Check it out! You will see my Charlotte in her Glassine bikini in my Configurations Tray. Oh shucks! Thanks Timmy!!!